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Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Im-Por-Tance of Giving

A few days ago, someone asked me if the housing co-op where I live has a doorman. "We're way too poor to have a doorman," I laughed, "though there is a homeless guy who sleeps in the entrance to the furniture store downstairs. Does he count?"

When I pull my bike up onto the curb tonight, the homeless guy is nowhere in sight, but there is a large black lady sitting on the sidewalk right next to my front door, rocking back and forth. It's hard to know what she's doing - praying? holding back vomit? In any case, I pause a good distance from the door and look for my keys, not sure if I should engage or not.

I've just come home from volunteering at a fundraising dinner for a local non-profit, delivering trays of miso butter-glazed turnips, cabbage-apple-chard slaw, massive salmon whose tender flesh was nearly bursting out of the charred cross-hatching on its skin. "It is very im-por-tant," the volunteer coordinator has instructed us, enunciating each "t" like the star from the companion CD to an English language textbook, "to keep everyone's water glass filled." And so, responsible volunteer that I am, I've spent the past five hours looping from kitchen to dining hall, carrying water pitchers, platters and plates, lurking now and then out front to catch a bit of the keynote speech, an emotionally-wrought fundraising pitch or a couple of eight year olds leaping about on stage to Native American hand drums, or lingering in the back to sneak a bite of leftover turnip pie. I've tossed at least 20 pounds of uneaten salmon and gourmet brown rice into the compost and sipped down a complimentary glass of Sangiovese, and have fled before I'm tempted to sample the remains of an array of decadent desserts scattered among the tables.

The streets are mostly empty, and the cool evening air is very welcome. I pedal a peaceful four dark miles home, and am greeted by this apparition on my doorstep.

I've gotten very good at saying no to people. If I learned nothing else in Africa, I learned to be hard, to not take every plea for help personally. Everyone there is needy, to some extent, and it's hard to tell who's really in trouble, and who's just hoping for a handout from you, a white westerner who probably has something to give. I made it a personal policy to never give out money to people I didn't know.

Here in Seattle, poverty and homelessness are again much more than anything I can singlehandedly address. And although lots of us, myself included, are struggling to some extent, the truly needy stand out - you wouldn't be living on the streets here unless you were really in trouble. And although I know that what's needed here are systemic changes, and not a few crumpled bills from my pocket, I still don't feel comfortable ignoring people living on my doorstep. Especially not when I've just devoted my evening to the very im-por-tant task of greasing wallets at a feast of excessive abundance.

And so, as I step up to the co-op door, I make eye contact. "D'you have some macaroni and cheese?" the woman asks.

How specific, I think. "No, but I do have some peanut butter. Do you eat peanut butter?"

"With jelly?" she asks.

"Yep, I can do jelly. I can put it on a bagel for you. Would that be alright?"